July 02, 2015

Greenland-style paddling instructor James Manke is the founder of the website All Things Qajaq. He teaches at sea kayaking symposiums and events throughout the world, and along with paddler James Roberts, represented Canada to compete in the 2014 National Greenland Kayaking Championships. James Manke won gold in the Greenland rolling competition and 5 silver medals in other traditional kayaking disciplines. He is an active member of West Coast Canadian ocean kayaking group, The Hurricane Riders. We interviewed James at the 2015 Pacific Paddling Symposium.

James: Today was Coaches Day. It was all about getting out there, sharing with and inspiring fellow instructors, which I found very rewarding. One of the things I found very interesting was all the different games that some of these coaches are utilizing and playing. They’re quite clever, actually. Some of the other things that I picked up, and one of the things I do often in rolling, is that I talk a lot about a “load-drive concept”. When we implemented that into strokes and all the different techniques that are out there, it was amazing to find out that the load-drive concept is actually used though all the skill sets in kayaking, along with other sports. It’s very valuable to have a Coaches Day like this at the beginning of a symposium, simply because you can bounce ideas off other instructors. It’s just really rewarding as an instructor to have that as an experience.

Andrew: What will you be teaching this weekend?

James: I’ll be focusing on teaching Greenland rolling, primarily in the pool, and a lot of beginner rolling, some intermediate, and a little bit of advanced. Then on Sunday I’ll be teaching out in the actual currents, out in Race Rocks. We’re going to be doing a Greenland rolling clinic out in the currents, which is the next step after learning your roll. It’s kind of exciting because it’s the first time that’s happened here at PPS, so I’m pretty excited about that on Sunday.

Andrew: So how did you first get into Greenland rolling?

James: Interestingly enough, I got into Greenland rolling from a fear of the water. I was afraid of the water, and it all started when I was a young child. I actually got attacked by a loon when I was 11 years old. I was in a belly boat, and I was kicking backwards, coming around this pier and fly fishing. I kicked into a loon’s nest, and that was a big mistake. It was either the mother or the father, and it swarmed me, and came at me, then it decided to go under the water and it attacked me that way. It became quite an experience! I got out of the water, and never went in to the water until my late 20s, and when I did it was pools primarily. I wouldn’t step foot in a lake, because there are loons in a lake. And the ocean? Heck, no! I mean, if there are loons in a lake, what’s in the ocean, right? There was no chance of me even going in the ocean. I was quite terrified of the water.

When I picked up kayaking and discovered rolling I thought, Hey, this could be a great way for me to overcome that fear of the water. So I picked up on that, and it did help. It started to help me overcome that fear. I discovered that the more that I understood it and that the more rolls I learned, the more confident I became. I went from being completely afraid of the water to, all of a sudden, now I’m playing in the biggest water — paddling Skookumchuck rapids, and that sort of thing. I’ve been down the Grand Canyon. It just sort of all exploded from, started from, a fear of the water. Learning to roll really added a whole lot of confidence to my paddling. So that’s basically my story and how I started — a little bizarre, but that’s where I was.

Andrew: Can you comment about the difference between standard kayak paddles and Greenland paddles?

James: I personally use both paddles. I like “Euroblades” as much as I do like Greenland blades, and I’ll try to be as diverse as I can with both paddles. In the future I’d like to grab a wing paddle and start to blend that into the mix. I’m not so much a purist when it comes to Greenland paddling. I’m more about the blending of the skills. I think that there’s a lot of value from traditional kayaking that modern day kayakers can pick up, so that’s more what I promote rather than being the purist of Greenland, or being one-sided about a Greenland paddle. I think there’s value in all blades, all kayaks. The more kayaks and the more paddles you know how to use, the better paddler you are. That’s the bottom line.

Andrew: About your trip to Greenland with James Roberts to compete in the National Kayaking Championships and to film the movie Greenland Bound — A Paddler’s Pilgrimage: how much do you think that experience changed you?

James: It definitely changed me. It changed me in a big way. Going into a competition, you really expect a competitive sort of feel. And when we got there it became very obvious that this was more of a celebration. It was more about a culture, and about inspiring young kids so that that cycle continues. It was really an inspirational event. It’s not so much about winning so much as it is about being there, and inspiring, and being a part of it. I think more of an American attitude toward something like that is that we are quite competitive. We do a lot of sports and we are competitive by nature. So going to an event like that, I walked in feeling that way, but had to give my head a shake, like, “Oh man, I’m here for the wrong reasons!” I really learned that the reason for being there was about kids, and about inspiring the next generation of paddlers. So there was a big message to learn when I was there.

There were some language barriers, for sure. In Greenland they speak Greenlandic. Their second language is Danish. There are a number of people who are Danish who live there, so you can use a Danish person as sort of a translator. But still, it’s pretty broken language. Someone from Denmark doesn’t really understand Greenlandic that well, but can kind of pick apart what it is.

James Roberts and I went to the judge’s booth, and we had a Danish guy with us to translate. We said, “When is our long distance race?” And from the translation that we got, he said, “Oh, you’ve got lots of time. You can go out for lunch.” So we thought, “Oh great! Thats awesome!” We take off our drysuits and put on all our camera gear, and start hiking up this mountain to go to have lunch. Well, we make it up to the top of the mountain, and it’s a good 15-20 minute haul to get to the top, and there’s nobody there! And we’re like, “No, you gotta be kidding! There’s nobody here!” So we sit around and wait. Nobody shows up for lunch. Ok, this is a little bit odd. So we walk all the way back down to the bottom of the mountain. And we’re like, “Yeah we went all the way up there for lunch but there’s nobody there.” And they’re like, “Oh, you missed your race!” So we ended up missing a race because of the translation that got lost!

It was a little frustrating, but we learned that you can’t really rely on the translations. If you want to be a part of this, you just have to stay in that area and just listen for your name. Because I know when they say, “JAMES MANKE, CANADA!”, I know that’s me. But all the other language is very hard to understand.

The interesting thing about culture and about different languages is that even if you don’t understand what they are saying, you can feel the energy. It’s very powerful. We felt that “welcomeness”. We could tell we were very accepted and welcome. And it took a couple days to warm into that.

Katya: What’s in your super-duper coach kit, as far as gear? Do you have some secret stuff in your PFD, something that you always bring?

James: I do like to hold on to a memento when I go paddling. For a long time it’s been a necklace of some sort. At one point I had a ring from my grandmother that I used to wear, but recently the memento that I’ve been wearing comes from a young guy that I mentored who lives on Salt Spring Island, and he made me a necklace. That’s now what I wear when I travel and teach. I make sure that I always have this necklace on me. He hand made that for me, so it’s just something that’s very special to me. So yeah, I do carry around a little something. I don’t have like a toolbox full of things that I might take out, because I am quite a minimalist when I go out paddling. But I do like to have something that I can sort of hang on to.

Andrew: How did you end up becoming a member of the Hurricane Riders?

James: Basically, how I became a Hurricane Rider is that a number of the Hurricane Riders are local to Victoria or Vancouver Island, and they became my peer paddlers. Since I started paddling I’ve always looked up to the best paddlers out there. I tried to tag along with them so I can learn from the best. I believe that if you want to become really good at something, you’ve got to surround yourself with people that are better than you, so that’s what I did. I hung around those guys, and eventually I just got brought on as a member. I think part of that was they saw some value in me for the skills and abilities that I have in rolling. And in reverse, they have skills and abilities in rough water that are absolutely incredible that that I can gain from. It was just a good partnership to join the team. I’m very happy to be a member and they are absolutely a blast to paddle with. A lot of times when I get out into some of those rougher conditions with other paddlers, they’re very timid and very afraid of the conditions. But when I’m out with those guys, it’s just nothing but fun — pure enjoyment and fun. And inspirational. I mean, we don’t just go out there and surf. It’s all about, OK, today we are going to do THIS! It’s always the next challenge, the next challenge. So that’s what I enjoy about the Hurricane Riders in particular. It’s a great group of paddlers to paddle with.

Andrew: What are your choice of kayaks?

James: I gotta be really careful what I say here because I’m a sponsored paddler, but I like a number of different kayaks. I am sponsored by Tahe Outdoors. One of the kayaks that they made in the past was the Tahe Greenland, and that is probably by far my favorite kayak that’s out there now. It is now made by a different manufacturer, but Zegul still has some Greenlands.

Some of the other kayaks that I really like — and if I was going to say some of the better kayaks that are on the market — are the Sterling Kayaks. Absolutely hands down. The Sterling Reflection is an excellent kayak. It’s very good in rough water, and actually rolls really well too. You can get in it a half-inch cut, and a one-inch cut. And they recently came out with the Progression which is meant for smaller paddlers. It’s cutting edge. It’s very cutting edge. The designer of the kayaks [Sterling Donalson] listens to paddlers, and that’s how the kayaks are made. So he takes all the input that he can from the paddlers and puts that into the build, and as a result makes the best products out there. So thats a little plug for Sterling!

James: Actually, the Progression is awesome of rolling. It’s really, really good — surprisingly good! When I rolled the Reflection, I was impressed with how it’s secondary kinda pops and finishes. With the Progression, when you do forward-finish rolls, all you gotta do is get your head up to the surface and the kayak just lifts. It’s amazing! It’s almost as if it does the roll for you. It’s a very odd feeling, actually, where it just has this incredible secondary stability and it pops. I think that has a lot to do with the rocker profile and its volume. As soon as you turn it over it just wants to lift right back up. Yeah, it rolls excellent. It’s a really good rolling kayak.

Andrew: I was wondering about that, because the conventional wisdom is that you need a really low volume kayak to do those Greenland rolls.

James: Well, you need a really low volume kayak to do some of the harder layback rolls, for example. Because you are looking to get back onto that back deck. Like a straight jacket roll, for example — good luck doing that in a touring kayak! That is something you gotta do in a very, very low volume kayak. So it really depends on the rolls and what your goals are. When we’re doing a lot of sea kayaking, the focus really isn’t on straight jacket rolls. I don’t think anyone is going to go out into the rough, get knocked over and think, “Oh, I don’t need a paddle”, and roll a kayak. We don’t really rely on the back deck that much when it comes to that.

I try to teach more forward finish rolling when it comes to the larger volume kayaks because with some tour kayaks you just can’t lie on the back deck all the way. And they become very difficult to do layback rolls in, so I find that, when that’s the case, I’ll teach the storm roll or some variation of a forward finish roll.

Andrew: Is teaching sea kayaking a full time job for you?

James: Yeah, I’m a professional kayaker. I do travel around the world, and I teach, and it's what I do full time. In the winter I supplement myself a little bit with some programming work, being an ex-programmer, just to bring in a little bit of extra income. But other than that, for about 10 months out of the year I’m a full-on sea kayak instructor. It’s my profession. This will be my third year as a professional instructor. It’s extremely rewarding. It definitely doesn’t feel like a job. And I would say probably, if it was a job, it would be the best job in the world! Hands down!

I’ve been blessed to be able to travel to lots of different spots. Japan I think was probably one of the greatest places I’ve been. Just the way they treat you there — like royalty! It’s so great! They are so kind and so accepting, and they learn incredibly well, even though there was a language barrier there, and I couldn’t speak to a lot of them. It was just a matter of getting in there, and twisting the shoulders, and doing this, and I’m almost like twisting Gumby, and they’re rolling! It was like, “Wow! These guys are really good!” Like they just picked it up really, really quick!

I think one of the reasons I am good as an instructor is because a lot of the rolls that I learned were all self-taught. I learned how to do it wrong just as well as I learned how to do it right. So if I watch someone do it wrong, I know exactly what’s going wrong. And I know exactly how you can fix that problem. It’s just a matter of being visual. I can see how someone is rolling and be able to detect incorrect things. I think a lot of that comes from being self-taught. If you are taught how to do it one way, then how do you know how to do it wrong? You don’t.

Andrew: At some point you must have gotten instruction from other coaches, the gurus of Greenland kayaking?

James: I did. Actually, at one point I hired Cheri [Perry] and Turner [Wilson] when I was learning to do forward finish hand rolls, because I was struggling with that a little bit. I didn’t really get very far with the session, but there were little nuggets of information in there that stuck with me.

Still, a lot of what I teach now with the hardest rolls, I’ve never even seen online. I’ve never been taught it, but when you watch some of the Inuit paddlers do the hardest rolls, it’s pretty obvious — some of the disconnection between the energy in the legs and the upper body, and the load-drive concept. A lot to people are just doing a “hip snap” to roll a kayak, or they are talking about lifting their leg. But they’re not really talking about what is happening to the other leg.

Andrew: What exactly is the load-drive concept?

James: So the load-drive concept is relevant to a lot of sports. It’s relevant to baseball. It’s relevant to golf — a lot of sports. Kayaking is another one. We use our legs often, and the load-drive concept is about the legs. If you are “loading” a kayak, you’re going to lift one leg and drop one leg down, and you’re putting pressure upward and downward on the kayak. So if this is the load position, than this would be the drive position — it would be the opposite.... When I roll the kayak, I’m loading the kayak up. Some of the benefits to loading the kayak is that I can get more power when I drive the kayak.

One way that I like to explain that to students is that it’s like throwing a baseball. If I threw a baseball from my shoulder and I throw it forward, I might get about 10 feet. But if I take that baseball to my shoulder and I load it up, and then I throw it, I’ll probably get about 50 feet. So I gain a tremendous amount of power by adding the load-drive concept to it.

But it can work against you, just like throwing a baseball. When you first learn to throw a baseball and your dad said, “Get it back there and throw it.” And you did this, and it just kind of fell to the ground, or went to the left or the right. It’s very much the same. The timing and the technique has still gotta be there in order to get that accurate throw. So it’s very much the same as in a kayak.

Some of the benefits again to loading the kayak up: when you are loading the kayak you can get your face closer to the surface, therefore you can reach further for leverage. It makes it easier to roll the kayak.

The load-drive concept is something that I never really learned from anybody else. I was always told about a “hip snap", or “lift the leg”, but nobody ever talked about that other leg. What is that other leg doing?

When it comes to the some of the hardest rolls, forward finish brick rolls, for example, you gotta load and drive the kayak. If you don’t, it’s gonna be almost impossible to do that roll. The load drive concept is the trick to the hardest rolls.

So I like to teach that to beginners. If you can teach a beginner the hardest technique, or the theory behind the hardest technique, and they can learn that from the beginning, then their success rate is huge. They’ll continue to roll. It’s not just take a rolling session and never roll a kayak again. They actually continue to roll because they’ve got so much power in their legs once they sort that out. So that’s the load-drive concept.

Katya: What is kayaking for you? Two sentences.

James: Kayaking for me is therapy. That’s one sentence. But it’s powerful!

June 24, 2015

Explorer/adventure photographer Jaime Sharp is in arctic Norway right now, attempting the first successful circumnavigation of the Svalbard archipelago by sea kayak with a team of two other kayakers, Tara Mulvany and Per Gustav Porsanger. Three previous attempts have been made, all ending in failure. Among the biggest hazards: polar bears. There are over 3000 polar bears living on the island, which makes it one of the areas with the highest concentration of polar bears in the world. “Polar bears are one of the few animals that are purely predatory,” Jaime said, speaking to the crowd gathered at the Pacific Paddling Symposium on Vancouver Island this past May. “And they are one of the only animals that will actually hunt humans intentionally, not because they are curious but because it’s like, you are moving, so you are food. Polar bears will also hunt the seals that have burrows under the snow. They walk around listening for them and smelling them out. Then they smash through the snow and pull the seal out.”

Jaime says that polar bear attacks were the reason for the failure of two previous attempts at the Svalbard circumnavigation. During the first expedition, a polar bear smashed one of the kayaks, so the team had to back out. In the last expedition, “a polar bear actually attacked them in their sleep in the tent. Dragged them out of the tent, one of the guys by his head. They had to shoot the bear.” As the bear came through the tent it stood on one of their rifles and snapped it in half. Luckily they had two, so they were able to get the other rifle and kill the bear.

To deal with polar bears, Jaime's team plans to have an active watch: “In the high concentration bear areas, one of us will be staying awake at any point. So we will do three-and-a-half hour shifts, staying awake as well as having a perimeter fence. On top of guns, we will also be carrying daggers and flares and stuff like that, doing everything we can before have to shoot a bear.”

Boys Hunting Book 1890

Another hazard is ice. The second expedition was cancelled because pack ice came in and the team had to start dragging their kayaks across the ice. The ice "started drifting away, taking them away from the island. And eventually they fell through the ice so many times they got injured, and they had to abort. So the ice and the polar bears are probably the biggest risk. Then on top of that you have the walrus. They can be territorial on the water and are known to come up to Zodiacs and puncture the Zodiacs with their tusks. Imagine them coming up to a kayak — they’ll rip the the back half of your boat off! The ice is also an issue not just because it might drift and block us off, but it may not actually recede. It may not actually melt completely and we can’t actually get around a quarter of the island route. So those are kind of our biggest challenges that we’re facing.“

Jaime: Back when I was like 25 I guess, or 26 —not too long ago, I’m only 34 — I worked up in Churchill, Manitoba and I was a dogsled guide up there. We’d actually run clients out on the tundra. Anyone who knows of Churchill, Manitoba, knows it’s the polar bear capital of Canada. So we’d see polar bears pretty much every day. Numbers of them. We’d encounter them on the dog sleds. Our dogs would want to chase them. The bears are scared of dogs, especially when you’ve got 8 of them trying to chase them. So my biggest issue was trying to stop the sled and keep them in position while I got the shotgun off my back and fired off a blank above them just to make sure the polar bear is running.

Then we would have them coming at night. We had a little cabin we lived in. We had 46 dogs that lived around the cabin and an electric fence. And we had all the frozen chicken meal and stuff that we’d use to feed the dogs under the house, but the polar bears could smell it. So they would be coming in at night time to look for this food. They’d hit the electric fence. that would keep them back, but then the dogs would of course be barking. So we’d wake up. Here’s this huge polar bear on the other side of the fence. We’d have to put a spot light on it to see it. It’s not been deterred by all these dogs, so then we’d have to shoot blanks. And that wouldn’t necessarily work. So then we would have an M80 shell that you could shoot. We would shoot a little wad of explosive out, and it would go BOOM. And then sometimes that wouldn’t work. We had to bounce one off of one one time, a big male who was probably 13 ft tall, if he stood on his back legs. That was kind of a regular occurrence on most nights.

And then we had another instance where we were right next to the arctic research center and that was where we’d go have meals. And they had a storage room with the freezers in the back. So they pulled out all the meats and stuff to thaw one night for all the staff, and they had a bunch of tofu sausages and bacon and sausages and stuff out there. And these two young polar bears came in and they broke open the wall. And they took and ate all the food, and they left the tofu sausages!

But then the next day, they had to get out the traps. They had these big trap door barrels, these huge barrels that they could go inside, and then it shuts. They had to trap them, but only one was able to be trapped. That was a very interesting to sit and watch them actually go in and see the trap go down. This trailer that it was on, I think it took like six men to manhandle off the back the back of the truck to get it into position. It was just really solidly built. Suddenly the trap doors comes down. This young polar bear is in there, and this whole thing is lifting up and down on it’s wheels as it’s trying to bash its way out. So you can just see the power of the bear. And that was really interesting because at that point I was able to go up to the grille and be like THIS CLOSE to the polar bear. And he’s in there and he’s just putting his claws down the grille, and he’s taking the paint flecks off the steel grille. You can just see how much power was in those claws, and you just knew that if it was raking human flesh, there would just be no chance. That was really my closest encounter with them.

But then I’ve also had closer, more insecure moments with them, where they’ve been maybe 200-300 meters from me, and all that’s between me and them was the shotgun I had in my hand. So that’s always been a little bit more intimidating. Just walking between our house and where we eat, and there’s a polar bear sitting on the tundra. Just keeping an eye on them, just making sure that they’re there.

But this trip is going to be a totally different barrel of polar bears really, because the ones in Churchill are used to having people around.They are used to being hunted by man. They are used to dogs hunting them with man. So they’ve got more of an intimidation factor against them from man and dogs. So it was easy to use that aspect to sort of stay safe. But where we’re going in Svalbard they have not been historically hunted by man, so man is definitely something that’s on the food chain for them. They are a lot more curious. They are lot more willing to encounter man. But that being said, there’s 3000+ polar bears on the island, but in the last 10 years there have been maybe three polar bear attacks. So the odds are pretty low still. There’s probably still more chance of being run over by a car than anything.

Katya: So the reason you’re going is because you just love polar bears? Honestly. I mean, what are the reasons?

Jaime: Well, I love kayaking. I love the challenge of kayaking. For me it’s an epic opportunity to actually do a kayaking trip that’s a world first. It’s also a trip that pushes everything I’ve known about kayaking and what I’ve been able to do. I started kayaking when I was 12 years old and I’ve just pushed it, and I’ve been an outdoor educator and guide and instructor. This for me is a chance to see what I’m made of, and also to be able see polar bears. You don’t want to see them too close. It’s always amazing to be out there. You see walrus and polar bear and bowhead whales and stuff like that. That’s always pretty magic. To go to a place that no other person has very rarely ever been, especially by kayak, is a very unique kind of experience. That’s something that I’ve always longed to experience.

June 15, 2015

We caught up with outdoor action photographer Freya Fennwood at the South Sound Traditional Inuit Kayak Symposium (SSTIKS) this past weekend while she was training for her upcoming trip to participate in the Greenland National Kayaking Championships. She brought along a sporty new kayak, custom-designed by her father, John Lockwood, owner and designer of Pygmy Boats, the Port Townsend manufacturer of wooden stitch-and-glue kayak kits.

After the rolling demo we sat sat down to talk with her about her preparations for Greenland. Here is the full transcript of our interview:

Andrew: What inspired you to take the trip to Greenland?

Freya: My father designed a boat specifically for me and specifically to do Greenland rolling. We came to SSTIKS actually, and Dubside was like, “You guys should go to Greenland with this boat! Freya is really good! I think she could compete and do well!”

It’s really not about doing well. It’s just a really good excuse to go take this boat there and go participate in the paddling culture, which is something that I’ve been born into and been in my whole life. To go to the birthplace of kayaking sounds like a really awesome experience, so I’m really excited to see what it’s like there, to meet the people, and participate in what they do.

Andrew: Can you tell us about what you mean about being born into the kayaking culture?

Freya: I’ve been paddling boats — in boats— since I was 18 months old. My dad designed the first kayak for me when I was 5. It was built by the time I was 6, and I paddled that. Then he designed me another boat, maybe when I was around 10, the Osprey 13. And that was my next boat, and then he didn’t really design me another boat until he designed the Freya. He decided to call this boat the Freya after me, which is pretty sweet! Can’t complain. Gotta boat named after me!

Andrew: How did your father get interested in Greenland style?

Freya: Really it’s not something he’s been into for super long. He probably picked up a Greenland paddle about 5 years ago. I remember as a little kid at kayak symposiums, seeing people with Greenland sticks and just thinking it was the silliest thing I’d ever seen. And then my dad comes up to me — he is just raving about this paddle and how it doesn’t hurt his shoulders, and how he can paddle twice as far as he could with the Euroblade. And I was like, OK, I’ll try it out. And I tried the Greenland paddle and I was like, Oh, I’m pretty young but this does actually NOT hurt my shoulders as much. I can paddle just as fast or faster, and longer with the Greenland paddle. So that kind of interest in Greenland paddling started from using the paddle first and then getting more interested in the boats.

The Pygmy boats my dad designs are definitely based off of traditional Greenland kayaks — he’d have to tell you —some big book of classic Inuit designs. His designs definitely take from that, but we’re only starting to come out with lower volume boats that are really made to do Greenland rolls really well in the past couple years.

Andrew: Tell us about your kayak. Was it designed specifically for rolling?

Freya: The Freya is really optimized to be a rolling and a kind of rock gardening play boat. We optimized it specifically for rolling, to do forward finishing rolls really well, and to do layback rolls really well. So the boat has more rocker than any other boat my dad has ever designed. It has more volume in it than a traditional, typical rolling skin-on-frame kayak, which actually helps it pop and roll up more. But it has a really low rear deck. My dad has designed this recess that is actually something that he came up with, that Pygmy has got a patent on, that really allows the back deck to be super low and then pop up to have nice volume, to have the boat flip back up. So really people are surprised when they see the boat. They think it looks really too-high volume, like, “Oh, thats probably not going to be that easy to roll.” And I’m like, “No, I’m decent at rolling but my boat is really good at rolling.”

Andrew: So you are taking the Freya to Greenland? What does it take to get a kayak over there?

Freya: We took the boat, and the shop cut it into 3 pieces. So it’s actually a three-piece take-apart kayak. We got the specs from the airlines — exactly how long the segments are allowed on the flights — and we cut the boat to those specifications. It’s bolted together at the hatches essentially.

Andrew: What kind of training have you been doing to prepare for the kayaking competition?

Freya: We’ve been thinking about potentially going for couple years and so I’ve been slowly learning. I learned how to roll about 4-5 years ago. I didn’t actually know how to roll, like as a little kid. Most of our kayaking is flat water stuff that is really close to shore. You would needn’t to use a roll.

So I learned how to roll, and then I ended up being kinda decent at it. And it was fun just to learn all these other ones. And then the possibility of going to Greenland really motivated me to learn a lot more rolls. I probably wouldn’t have learned this many rolls if there wasn’t a purpose to it. A roll generally for me is for a purpose. I learn to roll so I can go into rougher, wilder conditions. To roll in 30-some ways, the purpose for me is to go experience Greenland.

Andrew: Have you been consulting and asking for advice from some of the other people who have participated?

Freya: I’ve talked to Dubside, and he’s taught me rolls here at SSTIKS, and has really informed us about Greenland. I was just up in Victoria with James Manke. He went and competed last year in Greenland, and he gave me a ton of information. I learned that I was supposed to preregister, and the registration was due last week! Hopefully it worked out. He contacted a person who is the head of registration, and was like, “We have this girl, Freya. She’s coming to Greenland! She really wants to participate! She had no idea there was registration that needed to be done!” So he’s been a huge help with his knowledge. But there’s a lot of information that’s hard to find.

I’ve talked to Helen Wilson, and she’s been super helpful. But there’s just a lot you don’t really know until you get there. They all say you just have to go with the flow, and go with the intention of just participating and having fun. The schedule may be two days late, so I’m just going and hoping to hang out in a beautiful place and meet other people who like to kayak.

Andrew: Do you know if there are any other international competitors going?

Freya: I have no idea if there are other international competitors. I don’t believe if there are any Canadians. I don’t know if there are any Americans. I don’t think so, so I'll find out!

June 12, 2015

Katya and I were invited to be the official videographers for this year's Pacific Paddling Symposium, which was held at Pearson College on Vancouver Island right outside Victoria on May 29-31. We brought a ton of camera gear and shot all weekend long, backing up our cards, reviewing footage and charging batteries every night. I really enjoyed having essentially unrestricted access to all the classes, coaches and events. Sometimes with a camera I feel like I am intruding in events like this. They even let us on the support boat, which is how we got a lot of on-the-water footage.

Shooting on the water is incredibly challenging. Capturing a stable image with a moving camera on land is hard enough, but on the water in a kayak or boat it is nearly impossible. Our solution and the only thing I think that works effectively is to use an electronic gimbal, so we used a DSLR on the new DJI Ronin M. The Ronin M is half the weight of the original Ronin and was designed for lighter cameras. I was using it basically "bare bones", without any additional gear like an electronic viewfinder. It still gets heavy after holding it for longer than a minute though, so after a whole day of carrying it around, my arms were sore and my back was totally bent out of shape. It's quite a workout!

Unlike the Steadicam devices, the Ronin just takes a few minutes to set up and is a no-brainer to use. You basically slide the camera in and secure it using a tool-less system and get it roughly balanced, turn the switch on and you're good to go. It still takes some practice to get really stable moving footage -- learning to walk "heal-to-toe" and that sort of thing -- but I was able to get great results just holding it steady on a moving boat.

We recorded some interesting interviews with a number of coaches and attendees and ended up getting a lot of footage, so it will take a while to cut it all. I expect to release the full "feature" in the beginning of September. Since so many people at the Symposium were interested in seeing the video I wanted to release this "highlight reel" of some of our best shots right away. Enjoy!

June 06, 2015

Katya and I paddled to concert on the water last night, which was held as part of the ongoing protest against the Port of Seattle hosting Royal Dutch Shell's oil drilling rig the Polar Pioneer. The musicians performed on a barge anchored right off of Don Armeni Park in West Seattle. You could hear the music from shore but the audience was encouraged to listen from kayaks on the water. Afterwards, the flotilla of kayaks, SUPs, and other human-powered boats illuminated with deck lights and lanterns gathered together for a spectacular parade.

I think it might not have been a very well-publicized event because Katya and I had only heard about it four days before. Just like we did during the ShellNo protest, we put in far away from the park to avoid the crowd and any hassle finding parking. We put lights inside our skin on frame kayaks and turned our kayaks into lanterns. Some people were lighting sky lanterns and releasing them over the water. Although breezy at first, after sunset the water calmed down and it turned into an incredibly beautiful evening for paddling.

The song on the video is Native American flute player and storyteller Paul Cheoketen Wagner.

May 28, 2015

Gerhardt Raven of Ravenwoods Paddles and Qajaqs hosted a small gathering of traditional kayaking enthusiasts at Rebecca Spit on Quadra Island last weekend. It was loosely structured and there was no schedule. People showed up Friday and Saturday and there some rolling instruction and practice going on as well as trips out around Heriot Bay or the Breton Islands. We all shared a campsite that Gerhardt had reserved. It was right on the beach and had an awesome view of the sunset.

Alan Dunham and Michael Jackson were out rolling the first thing Saturday morning, fully geared up in tuiliks and very low volume Tahe Greenlander kayaks. Alan brought his special rolling brick that he had prepared by wrapping it in tape and coating it with bright red Plasti Dip. He was sharing a lot of tips and tricks and rolling esoterica. These guys are serious!

I put on a drysuit and waded out to shoot this video. The cove at Rebecca Spit is very shallow for quite a way out from the beach. At low tide it can be a long hike across gravel and clams and oysters to the water. At high tide the water is is a perfect rolling location: calm and protected, unusually warm and crystal clear. I shot this entirely on my iPhone 6 plus. It not only shoots HD at 240 fps, but also has optical image stabilization -- an amazing camera!

May 19, 2015

Protesters for environmental and social justice causes are often described as hippies, anarchists, pot heads, hipsters, and unemployed losers dependent on government assistance. Alternatively, they are labelled as idealistic, privileged college kids, still too naive to understand how the world really works. This stereotyping is a mental shortcut intended to distract from, and dispel any interest in, the actual issues to which protestors are attempting to bring attention.

In the case of the Paddle in Seattle protest against the Port of Seattle hosting Royal Dutch Shell’s exploration oil rig, the Polar Pioneer, the most common label I have heard thrown at the kayaktivists is “hypocrite”:

“Don’t they realize that that all of their colorful plastic kayaks are made from OIL? GET A JOB!”

“I bet they all drove their cars to the protest. #IRONY.”

The argument assumes that the kayaktivists oppose the use of all and any petroleum products on principle. It’s the first - and usually the only - argument offered, as if simply calling the protestors “hypocrites” completely invalidates the argument that offshore drilling in the arctic both risks damaging fragile ecosystems and will contribute significantly to global climate change.

No one can escape using petroleum products and still live in the modern world. We have few choices in this, in large part because the oil companies have always fought to limit the availability of alternative fuels (whether it is electric or biofuel) to preserve their monopoly and keep us addicted. But just because you use plastic or drive a car doesn't mean that you don’t have the right to speak out against a dangerous trend in continuing oil exploration and development and fight to stop it.

In an interview in The Nation, Harvard historian Naomi Oreskes stated that during the era of American slavery, “people in the North wore clothes made of cotton picked by slaves. But that did not make them hypocrites when they joined the abolition movement. It just meant that they were also part of the slave economy, and they knew it. That is why they acted to change the system, not just their clothes.”

For this video I wanted to interview people on the water and show what they were really like, and find out why they were out there. Each person involved in the Paddle in Seattle had his or her their own reasons to protest the presence of the Polar Pioneer. One is the lack of the public’s participation in the Port of Seattle’s decision to allow Shell to park the Polar Pioneer at Terminal 5. Even Seattle’s ex-mayor Mike McGinn stated that the Port commissioners knew that their decision would be controversial, so they kept the negotiations secret and ran the decision through quickly to limit time for public input.

Another concern is that offshore drilling risks another massive spill like the Deepwater Horizon incident, involving a company that already has suffered from an incident involving an exploration vessel running aground when the engines of a tow ship failed during a storm while it was being towed to Seattle, and a number of safety violations related to arctic exploration. The harsh conditions and remoteness of the arctic would make dealing with a major spill difficult.

Of course a big concern is the impact continued oil exploration and development will have on climate change. A recent study in the journal Nature concluded that exploitation of the arctic oil reserves would threaten our ability to keep the average global temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius, the tipping point where one would expect widespread coastal flooding, animal and plant extinctions, and a severe impact on global agriculture. In fact, Shell’s own internal documents estimate a 4 degree Celsius rise in average global temperature in the short term, rising to 6 degrees in the long term.

The kayaktivists we interviewed:

Rob West is a scientist/biomedical researcher and Seattle resident. He paddles a beautifully-crafted Brian Schulz F1 skin-on-frame kayak.

Colin Miller is a residential carpenter/contractor and Seattle resident. He paddles a classic wooden Pygmy stitch-and-glue kayak. The Paddle in Seattle is the first time he has ever been active in a protest.

April 16, 2015

Sterling Donalson of Sterling Kayaks showed us an absolutely amazing kayak that was a special order for a customer in Ontario. In addition to an extremely light weight layup, it was made with seamless construction, which reduced the weight another 5-6 pounds. The total weight is 31.65 pounds, fully outfitted! He said that it took too much work to make this kayak so it will probably be a one-off. This kayak probably beats even most skin-on-frame kayaks as far as light weight goes.